


don't meet the dead halfway

by fifteen



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Gen, crisis of self-worth, maybe a ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28495671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fifteen/pseuds/fifteen
Summary: Marta lived in the house for about a year, before she put it on the market.It's a very nice listing, no mention of suicide or attempted murder (the agent had insisted) and it will sell for a lot of money.
Relationships: Benoit Blanc & Marta Cabrera, Marta Cabrera & Harlan Thrombey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	don't meet the dead halfway

**Author's Note:**

> This makes more sense if you understand that I had seen the movie once many months previous when I wrote this. Certain things won't be terribly in character. It's cool, it's just for fun ^^'

Marta lived in the house for about a year, before she put it on the market. 

It's a very nice listing, no mention of suicide or attempted murder (the agent had insisted) and it will sell for a lot of money. 

In November, after... everything, she moved her mother and sister into the house, let them pick their bedrooms. She remembers Alice clomping up and down the central stairs, just to stare at her with wide eyes and say, "You're shitting me, right?" Their mother found a copy of Forbes and smacked her on the arm. 

It was March when the packets began to arrive, Alice's name neatly printed on each one. Every day was a new delight, opening offers from schools she had only applied to so that she could say she got in. Darthmouth, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and also several local colleges in Boston that she had considered real options. The day she ripped open the last one, Marta smiled ruefully to herself and picked at the hem of her borrowed robe. She would have to wash it soon, but she liked that it still smelled a little bit like gross aged whisky and flowery cologne. She took a deep breath and reminded herself about the mystery of the universe, fate, and all that nonsense that Harlan appreciated. If he could hear how much Alice tormented herself, trying to pick the right half-a-million-dollar university, she was sure he would laugh. 

When they leave the house in August, they drive two hours southwest to New Haven, where Alice moves into the dorms at Yale. Marta drives her mother another hundred miles East to Newport, where she'd purchased an eccentric house, painted haphazardly in blues and pinks. It is tucked away from the busier parts of the city, close enough to parks and coffee shops and not ten minutes from a cove or harbor in any direction. Her mother buys curtains for the front room the first full day they are there. 

Marta stays with her for a while. She doesn't know how long it will be, but her mother doesn't mind-- has told her, "Don't talk about leaving right now. Do you have a house? Do you know what you want? Okay, shut up and eat your breakfast."

She spends a lot of time wrapped up in a blanket, ignoring emails from the publishing company and perching in a windowseat like a sailor's wife. She still has Harlan's mug. _My House, My Rules, My Coffee._ She uses it for everything and washes it by hand, even though they have a dishwasher. Even though this _isn't_ her house, actually. 

She sometimes remembers the weight of Ransom on top of her, the way he'd smelled, breathing into her face. It had been breath and sweat and the strong, sharp scent of vomit. The smell had registered right after 'He is going to kill me,' and she had been too distracted by it to notice the prop knife until after they'd lifted him off of her. Obviously, she never liked to lie before, but now she can't even consider it. She is honest, even when she'd rather not be, because the alternative is having that _smell_ around her again, having it in her mouth.

So, when Detective Blanc calls her and asks how she's doing, she doesn't say, "Oh, I'm very well, thank you for saving my life, I promise I'm using it." 

She says, "I feel like a widow in a movie. What am I supposed to do now?"

He hums at her in his way, thoughtful and paternal. 

"Been meaning to ask you why you left," he says. 

Marta tells him about Alice and about her mother's dreamhouse in Newport, Rhode Island. Tells him how strange it is. 

"Harlan is dead," she says. "So I can't ask him what the right thing is, how I'm supposed to spend this money, if he really meant to disinherit them all _forever_. What if he would have changed his mind and let them back into the will?" She scoffs. "He can't have meant for his life's work to amount to my mother's house and my sister's tuition."

Blanc laughs over the phone. 

"Marta! Why, you sound just like Walter. Do you think you don't deserve that money?" His voice is extremely gentle, which is irritating. 

"I don't care who deserves the money! I just want to honor what Harlan wanted." 

When he doesn't say anything for a moment, she says, "I'm sorry I snapped at you."

Blanc ignores her apology and says, "It's tricky, to be sure. However, those people are Harlan's family, not yours."

"What do you mean?" she takes a sip from her mug. 

"He knew them much better than you do, which makes him better qualified to make decisions for them. Of the two of you, I mean. He's their father, and you're some nurse." It sounds like he's smiling when he says the last part. 

"Not anymore," she says. "I'm not anything, not right now."

"You would say that Marta Cabrera is not a nurse? I don't believe that."

She can't help smiling. "You would know if I were lying," she reminds him. 

He snorts. "Perhaps you're simply misinformed."

\--

When it happens, Marta is scrubbing Harlan's mug. She left it on the countertop that morning and there is a stubborn ring of black tea inside. She looks up to pump more soap onto her sponge and then she sees it through the kitchen window. 

It is 10 P.M. and very dark. Although the neighborhood has street lamps, the house is tucked back behind a long drive and the trees lining it dampen most of the light. But even though she can hardly see him, she knows there's a man in her mother's yard.

He is sitting on the ground, maybe 20 yards away, with his back to the house. Marta feels frozen solid. She takes out her phone and is about to touch Blanc's number in her contacts when she realizes he is hours away, too far to help her. Her mother has been making friends at church, but she doesn't know anybody in this town. Should she call the police? 

She wants to. She is about to, when he turns his head and looks into the window. 

The light from the house is just enough for her to make out his face, but she blinks about forty times anyway, just to make sure she's seeing correctly. She is, but she can't be, because that means that Harlan Thrombey is cross-legged in the grass outside her mom's house. 

She almost drops the mug, but fumbles it safely back to the countertop. She stares at it there, reads the words, over and over. _My House, My Rules, My Coffee. My House, My Rules, My Coffee._

Harlan can't be here, because he's dead, which means she is suffering a break from reality. Her specialty is not mental health. She is not a doctor. She could try to diagnose what she thinks is happening, but she can't get much further than 'hallucinations induced by trauma' before she wants to hyperventilate. 

She risks looking out there again, and sees his head is turned away. Before she knows it, she has her shoes on and a knife from the block in her hand (a small one, just in case). Feeling a little silly but mostly like she's going to pass out from fear, she stabs it lightly against the doorframe and it sticks in, holding its shape. 

Assured, she leaves the house and approaches the figure. He doesn't move or speak or acknowledge her at all, even as the door slams comically loud behind her. Her hands are trembling in the pockets of the robe and the wind is whipping her hair around her face. She should have tied it up. 

"Hello?" she calls, stopping close enough to the house that she can dart back inside if she needs to. 

The figure pats a hand on the grass next to him. 

"You might as well get comfortable, Marta. It's a warm night and the ground is dry."

Marta gasps and feels like a fish that somebody dragged out of the water. She breathes hard, left hand pressed tight against her clammy forehead. 

That's Harlan's voice. 

When he turns to look at her, it's Harlan's face, just the same as the last time she'd seen it. His eyes are serious and his mouth is turned down into a frown. He's still patting the ground, and Marta is terrified to find her legs pacing forward and dropping her next to him. 

"Who are you?" she demands. She is very tense and she still has her right hand on the knife. 

He doesn't answer her question, just tilts his head back to stare directly upwards. 

"I've been to Newport before. Do you remember I told you about it? I was probably 20 years old, hadn't even met Laura. I came here to find a typewriter someone was selling for cheap. I saw an advertisement for it in the paper in Boston. Got my first job writing on that thing. Isn't it funny, that you should come here?"

Marta breathes shallowly through her nose. She follows his gaze and sees nothing but the black sky. She looks back at his face.

"Harlan?" she asks, voice unsteady. 

He is silent for a long time, just staring up at the sky, gaze darting around. 

"I bet you could see the stars out here, 60 years ago. I never even looked."

He turns to face her again and, suddenly, he says, "Marta, that Smith-Corona Sterling belonged to me. Its previous owner had been using it to prop open a door. That's no use for a typewriter, wouldn't you agree?"

She catches his eyes and stares, silent. 

"So I used it to write, and write a lot. That's what a typewrite is meant for. But it doesn't matter what I did with it," he insists. "Because it belonged to me."

His mouth quirks with humor. 

"I never thought about the man who sold it to me when I sat down to write. Never asked myself, 'Do you think he would like it if I used this typewriter as a door-stop occasionally?'"

He laughs and Marta is... torn. She should really go back inside and pretend she isn't hearing a parable from her dead friend. She should shut the curtains, lock each and every door, and roll herself up in a tight ball of blankets. But, then, she imagines the figure of Harlan appearing in her bedroom instead, speaking to her in the closeness of total darkness. She stays where she is and just listens. 

Not-Harlan gives her a gentle smile. 

"I made the choice to use it that way and, when I could afford a new model, I made the choice to sell it to someone else. I didn't spare it a thought."

He looks back at the empty night sky. 

"What you have is yours, Marta, and no one can tell you what to do with it. Especially not the old fart who gave it to you."

Her mouth opens. Closes. Finally she says, "You weren't that old. You had a lot of life left! You might have changed your mind about me."

He rolls his eyes and glances over at her. "Are you calling me senile? Are you saying I don't know my own mind? That's very insulting, my friend."

It's ridiculous, but she wants to argue with him. He isn't even real, has been dead for almost a year, but she is suddenly hot with anger. 

"I don't want to hear that from you," she spits. "If you had listened to me, you would be alive!" She closes her eyes. "You were idiotic and selfish. Actually, you were an idiot most of the time, looking back. Why should I trust you?"

She stares him down and waits for him to answer. 

"Luckily, like I said... it doesn't matter. I did what I wanted, which is what you would do if you had any sense."

She huffs and stands, pulling both hands out of her pockets, knife forgotten. 

"How I am supposed to forget your family? I'm sending my sister to school, but Jacob? Meg? They still need tuition, Walt won't take his job back, Donna leaves me voicemails where she just cries. They're your family."

He scoffs. "Now you're the one not listening. I told you already that the money isn't mine. Should I really get to decide what happens to it?"

He gestured to the air around him. "If you hadn't noticed, I'm dead."

She turns her back to him and marches a few feet toward the house. 

"It's your rules," he says after her. 

When she turns around, he isn't there. 

\--

She wakes up in a mountain of blankets, sweating and more exhausted than when she fell asleep. 

She makes breakfast for herself and her mother and only briefly thinks about the night before. She looks at her mug and a strong tremor runs through her. 

Her mother comes downstairs to eat and they talk for a while about mundane things. 

"I found a coupon for that seafood place we saw," her mother says. 

Marta smiles. "Mama, you're rich. You don't need coupons."

Her mother looks stern. "I'll use coupons if I want to. Are you my mother?"

Marta shakes her head, grinning. They eat in silence until Marta feels the buzz of an email come through on her phone. 

"It's the realtor," she says. "They just closed the deal. They'll wire the money by the end of the week."

"Congrats," her mother drawls, deadpan. "You sold your house. Now what are you going to do with your money?"

Marta taps her butterknife on the plate and thinks about it. The Thrombeys are still in Boston, as far she knows. She could always pay them a visit, see what they need. She gets another email.

"It's the publishing company again," she says. 

"You are Miss Business this morning," her mother notes with her mouth full.

"It's another market report. It's stats about the-- my --company. They send me these a lot. I think they want my input on investments."

"Maybe you should do something about that."

She closes her hands around the warm surface of her mug. It's almost too hot to touch, but it doesn't hurt her. 

"Maybe I will."

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Voiceteam 2020!


End file.
